All the Arts, All the Time

The $10-million LACMA rock caravan stops a few miles short

March 2, 2012 | 11:25
am

LACMA's massive boulder successfully completed its third night on the road Thursday into Friday with no major glitches, something that continues to amaze observers considering the thicket of logistical challenges involved with moving a 340-ton rock across 105 miles.

Still, Thursday night's stretch of the journey proved a tad more complicated than expected. The rock was scheduled to stop at Chino Avenue and Chino Hills Parkway in Diamond Bar for its daytime break. But the rearranging of power lines so that the boulder could pass through slowed things down. The rock caravan turned in for the night a little after 3 a.m., two miles short of its intended destination.

The transporter hasn't yet crossed into Diamond Bar. It's now sitting at Chino Avenue at the 71 freeway.

The unplanned stopping point is not an ideal spot for pedestrian visits, as there's very little safe parking. So the museum is encouraging people inclined to visit the rock to wait until Saturday. The rock will spend the weekend parked at Pathfinder Road in Rowland Heights, near Fullerton Road. It will not travel Saturday night, so it will remain there until late Sunday night.

The caravan will resume its slow crawl toward the museum Friday, at roughly 10 p.m.

As has been widely publicized by now, for 11 nights the granite rock is being transported from a Riverside quarry to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it will soon become the focal point of artist Michael Heizer's sculpture "Levitated Mass."